Gordon zeroes in on fourth title
By Dave Rodman, Turner Sports Interactive
November 10, 2001
3:10 PM EST (2010 GMT)
HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- As much effort as Tony Stewart is putting into winning his third straight race at Homestead-Miami Speedway Sunday, Jeff Gordon is focusing just as intently on achieving his own goal in the Pennzoil Freedom 400.
After an exceptional season, Gordon has to do very little either at Homestead or in the two races that follow it to claim his fourth NASCAR Winston Cup championship.
Gordon comes into Sunday’s race with a 326-point lead over Ricky Rudd. To put himself in a position of only having to start the final two races, he only needs to leave Homestead leading by 302 points.
To clinch the title outright, Gordon needs to pick up only 44 points on Rudd -- assuming Rudd holds onto second -- and leave South Florida with a 370-point lead.
While the late Dale Earnhardt was the last driver to clinch the championship with two races remaining, in 1994, recent history favors Gordon.
Before finishing 25th in last weekend’s race at North Carolina Speedway in Rockingham, Gordon had finished outside of the top-20 six times this season. In the races following those finishes he has posted top-fives in all but one.
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Jeff Gordon
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His best rebound performance came after finishing 27th at Lowe's Motor Speedway in May. The next race at Dover, Gordon led 381 of 400 laps en route to winning his second race of the season. Since then he has won four more times to lead the series.
"One of the characteristics of a championship team is that they bounce back from a bad finish," said Gordon, who will start 11th. "We've been able to do it all year and I don't expect it to be any different this weekend.”
Pontiac, which Stewart has put into Victory Lane the last two years here, has joined a chorus of complaints by Ford and Chevrolet teams that Dodge has an advantage. Stewart, the highest-qualifying Grand Prix in the field, will start 22nd.
"From a Pontiac standpoint, certainly at Homestead, you never count Tony Stewart out,” NASCAR group manager for GM Racing Doug Duchardt said. “That team knows how to put a race set-up under their car here and they can come from 22nd and win this thing.
“But if they do, they will have to outwork and outthink everybody else even more than normal because they have a hole to dig out of. But, you could also see a situation tomorrow where if (Bud Pole winner Bill) Elliott gets hooked up, and with track position being so important, it could be a boring snoozefest where they just leave us in the dust.”
Dodges dominated the two 45-minute practices Saturday, with Ward Burton in the No. 22 Intrepid posting the fastest speed in each. Including Burton, three Dodges led the morning session and two topped Happy Hour.
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Pontiacs, Fords and Chevrolets feel they are at a disadvantage.
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Stewart was fourth in the first session and fifth in Happy Hour, proving he has a good takeoff point for Sunday.
“It will have to be a combination of a great race car on track and great pit work,” Duchardt said. “He might have to get by five or six cars on a run and then get a couple cars on pit road, and work his way through the whole race that way.
“By the last stop, anybody that wants to have a shot at winning this thing is going to have to be in the top three or four to get it done. We saw the same thing in Phoenix.”
Two teams had to go to backup cars following practice. Elliott Sadler’s Wood Brothers team opted to go to its backup No. 21 Ford when Sadler collided with Jeff Green’s No. 31 Chevrolet, which was not badly damaged.
Childress Racing team manager David Smith said his team only had to straighten its right door panel after Sadler speared Green hard enough in the door bars to move his car’s front clip a half-inch.
Less than half an hour into Saturday’s first practice, Rick Mast’s No. 90 Ford crashed in Turn 1 when something apparently cut the inside shoulder of the right front tire. The car consequently didn’t turn and slammed into the wall, ruining the entire right side and causing his Donlavey Racing crew to unload its backup car.
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The incident between Elliott Sadler and Jeff Green was one of a few mishaps during Saturday's practice sessions.
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Mast was another driver singing the praises of head and neck restraints after the heavy crash.
“This Hutchens device is really pretty good,” Mast said, flexing his neck from side to side and only wincing a little. “I took a pretty good shot but I’m only a little stiff.”
Earlier in the session, Todd Bodine’s No. 66 Ford was hit in the right front while trying to enter the race track and spun in Turn 3 when he said Dale Earnhardt Jr. cut him off entering the pits.
“That was the stupidest thing I’ve seen lately,” Bodine said after missing the entire session while his team made repairs to its primary car. “I was just coming up onto the race track and Junior decided to go into the pits at the last minute.”
If Gordon, 30, is able to clinch the title Sunday, he will become only the third driver in history to win as many as four, joining seven-time champs Earnhardt and Richard Petty.
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